Definitely not an answer to my question.

most definitely the answer to your question. look at the role media played in the cold war and all the efforts both sides took to influence and sway people on the enemy's side of the iron curtain. now multiply that by 10 and you have today's media environment.

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graemep 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Social media enables greater foreign influence.

It also enables the spreading of fears of greater foreign influence and much else.

It generally gives you a very distorted view of the world.

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f6v 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It's a bunch of statements that need good evidence behind them. I'm not sure why you're ignoring what I said before: the Netherlands have great public education system and strong democratic tradition. The effectiveness of any foreign influence on political life should be studied. AFAIK, it's still a matter of debate.

Idk why you think knee-jerking "social media" adds any substance.

	▲	graemep 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I'm not sure why you're ignoring what I said before: the Netherlands have great public education system and strong democratic tradition. I am not ignoring it, I am agreeing with it. > The effectiveness of any foreign influence on political life should be studied. AFAIK, it's still a matter of debate. Agreed it needs more studying, but social media does does have influence, and its a reasonable assumption that that influence can be manipulated. It does definitely influence people who spend a lot of time on social media - they are very prone to believe conspiracy theories for example. How effectively such manipulation can be varies and itself becomes a political issue. The PM of the UK recently implied that the Brexit vote was swayed by the Russians but was swiftly shot down (by members his own cabinet and the head of the internal intelligence service among others.). > It's a bunch of statements that need good evidence behind them. Not every opinion needs a set of citations.